The present invention relates to a sorting conveyor including an annular row of laterally tiltable carrier platforms, which, on movable supports, are conveyed past a loading station, in which articles to be sorted are placed on the carrier platforms or so-called trays, and past a row of unloading or receiving stations, in which the trays are actuated selectively for tilting off and unloading the articles.
Conventional trays are driven by way of a driving station cooperating with a chain, to which the supports of the trays being secured, to a very heavy chain, the links of which are fitted with protruding guiding rollers that cooperate with longitudinal guiding rails, such that it is the chain itself which constitutes a stabilized base for the tray supports. This arrangement requires a guiding system made with very fine tolerances if unfortunate jammings and shakings should be avoided, moreover, the chain itself should be made with fine tolerances for a current, untroubled cooperation with the driving station. There are extra demands on the chain construction if the chain is to move through both horizontal and vertical curves, because the chain links should then be mutually movable in more directions while maintaining narrow tolerances. On the other hand it will then be possible, by for example a tachometer sensing at a single place of the conveyor path, to keep control with the exact positionings of all the trays in the system, such that the actuator means for the tilting of the trays in the single unloading stations can be activated by the passage of just the respective relevant trays.